Results tagged “prince”

Xinhua: Danish PM wishes for closer cooperation with China in New Year

Yeahhhhh, boyyyyyyy!

For one reason or another, when it comes to nightlife, Shanghaiist has its reservations about the Bund. Sure, we do the promenade/requisite bar crawl when out-of-towners come to play but, at the end of the day, we’re just not sold on it. (Our aversion was further amplified upon recently discovering a Facebook group called “THE SHANGHAI ELITE” – yes, they’re so elite they need to shout their name wherever they go. The activities of this group – Shanghai American School repruhzent! – revolve around “wild, breathtaking, heart aching, crazy and absolutely WiCkEd and crazy SHIT”. Among the ELITE’s favourite clubs, according to a recent thread, are Bar Rouge and Attica. We rest our case.)

Who is the most successful pianist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records? Who sells millions of his albums? Who was referred to as the Prince of Romance by Nancy Reagan? Whose concerts are always sold out, wherever he performs? No, this is not Jay Zhou, Justin Timberlake, or even less André Rieu, but instead the wonderful and charming French pianist Richard Clayderman.

Image from China Daily.

Will this finally be the end of the Shanghai clique? The death of Huang Ju, a former Shanghai mayor and party secretary and now former member of the Standing Committee of the Politboro, spells trouble for Jiang Zemin's already waning influence on the Hu administration. Having ascended to the role of vice premier of the State Council in 2003, Mr Huang had long served as the figurehead for the "Shanghai Clique", a group of politicians joined by their love of all things Shanghai (and Jiang Zemin). Were Raekwon the Chef asked to sum up the situation, he might say something like this: "The Shanghai Clique forms like Voltron and Huang Ju was the head."

Kaesong, North Korea: The managers of this capitalist enclave in communist North Korea are appealing for the world's support, saying their experiment in free markets can pave the way for regional peace. Kaesong supporters are aiming for the city to emulate Shenzhen, the special economic zone bordering Hong Kong, which kick-started China's economic boom, and say this will narrow the huge economic gap between North and South Korea with the help of foreign support.

We have finally woken from the slumber brought on by watching the Super Bowl (the Prince halftime show was much better than the game itself). If you were tuned in to ESPN Asia this morning like we were, you saw, over and over again, the same Allen Iverson "I'm not a gangster" commercial they've been playing for two years now — we love AI as much as the next guy, but would have preferred these. You also heard the announcers, over and over, talk about the "one billion viewers" that were tuning in to the game, and, almost as often, you saw them promote this August's "China Bowl" NFL preseason game in Beijing, featuring the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, on August 8. Here are the details of that game — not much has changed since we last told you about it in September, except now they have a logo (pictured).

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning.

Doors open at 9 pm and it's "ladies night" at bonbon, so all the girls get in free and get one free drink before 11 pm. (Don't they know girls ain't nothin' but trouble?) Standard drinks are 25 kuai. We would assume there is a cover for the guys, but it's not clear on the poster. Someone said it could be RMB 40.

Lonely (or just plain horny) city residents have taken to a new fad -- wearing bracelets which let people know that you are single (or at least still looking):

Blame it on the World Cup, but it’s a testament to the steady improvement of the Shanghai music scene that we now consider a weekend with four live shows “slow.” We unfortunately missed the Beijing rockers, Camel, at Live Bar on Friday night, but heard from reliable sources that they put on a fun, up-beat, pop-punk set. On Saturday, Hackbuteer played a wild show worthy of a crowd of 400 people at Yuyintang, except that there were only 40 people there. The highly underrated six-man band from Xi'an experimented with everything from straight-up rock-and-roll to an Incubus-esque combination of guitars and turntables. Best secret of the weekend, they were. And what’s better than drinking warm beer from a can in a dirty warehouse in the middle of nowhere?

Roller Revival tickets!

Photo by Shanghai Sky taken from the Shanghaiist photos page. To see your photos on our photos page, use Flickr and tag your photos "shanghaiist". Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site.

Image from Amazon.com.

Strumming her banjo and singing in English and Chinese, Abigail Washburn performed traditional American music last night at the Cotton Club with three esteemed bandmates. Playing a mix of bluegrass, country, gospel and old-time music, the former Beijing resident was joined by eight-time Grammy winner Béla Fleck who is considered the best banjo player in the world. With Casey Driessen on the fiddle and Ben Sollee on the cello, the packed club audience enjoyed a musical treat of a quality rarely found in Shanghai.

We're no prudes here at Shanghaiist. We've seen the dancing poles at Blue Angel. We've been propositioned by local ladies passing in the street (as recently as last week, in the dairy section of the Fresh Mart at Jing'an City Plaza). Admittedly, though, we're yet to experience a stage full of male strippers.

The residents of Shanghaiist's apartment building, especially those with hammers and drills, wake up at 5 a.m. on most Saturday mornings. But we're assuming this past weekend they all did so to stand in line to buy the English version of the new Harry Potter book -- everyone else in the friggin' world did.